Our software combines Kano OS, a distribution of Debian Linux, with an interface that feels a bit like a console game. It runs six Kano Levels, software projects to make Pong, Snake, Minecraft, videos, and music – with (inshallah) more to come.

We're also loaded with Scratch, Codecademy, and "Hacking Fundamentals," an introduction to the world of the Linux shell, where you can join the free software movement worldwide (and go on spy missions).

Simple steps, fantastic projects

A year ago, we started with a book – Lego-inspired, with a hint of our favorite manga. It's beautifully illustrated, instructional, with an achievement on every page. Our narrative (and name) is inspired by judo, and its creator, Kano Jigoro, a lifelong schoolteacher.

In the Bronx or Beijing

Kano is for everyone, so you can get our books in English, Spanish, Arabic, or Mandarin, and we're working on more languages. We deliver around the world with flat shipping costs. (See rewards at right.)

We'd love to make you a $99 kit. But any pledge, any size, will go toward building the first computer made by and for the majority world, and end-to-end with open source software.

Plug and play your own way

We designed the Kano Kit to be a bit like our favorite boardgames growing up. It's vibrant, repackable, and doesn't take itself too seriously. Trick out your computer with stickers, decals, and your own designs. Or turn your computer into a mini-boombox with a D.I.Y. speaker, powered by an amp and the Pi's own GPIO pins.

At school and at work

Make Kano with your cousin, your Dad, your friends, or your dog. (Caution: do not put stickers on dog.) The kit is also great for schools, clubs, companies, and places where people ponder. It introduces computing and code in simple, tactile ways.

Make hardware

Hack games

Share projects

Onboard Scratch, Codecademy, Minecraft, and more

Kano provides pedagogy, exercises, and tools for each key stage rubric in the new UK computing curriculum – it's great for small groups (a semester project) or a take-home project.

Get the projects and books

We want to get our content and software into your hands as soon as we can. Support us with more than $9, and you'll be an Alpha hero – you'll get early downloads of our books and software before our full release. $9 is a great pledge for anyone who has a Pi in their drawer and wants a cool way to get started (or teach it!).

(Pledge more than $19, and we'll send you a t-shirt and stickers too!)

Support computer kits for kids

Kano Academy is our not-for-profit project. Through it, we're working to get low-cost, homebrew tech into the hands of smart young people woldwide. We need your help to keep it going. So far, we:

Supported the Internet Archive to rebuild its fire-damaged scanning center in San Francisco, CA

We want to get kits to those who have been excluded – by economics or geography. Your pledge helps us make it possible.

Pledge $229, get a kit for yourself, and give one to a kid

If you want a kit and you're feeling the holiday warmth, consider pledging on behalf of a smart kid who can't afford one. Just email us at rewards@kano.me to let us know you want to Give-One-Get-One, and we'll pledge the kit in your name, to whomever you want, after the campaign.

Or, if you're feeling extra magnanimous, you can bump up to a Kano Lab pledge. You'll utterly transform a classroom, makespace, or institution with DIY computers and a hands-on introduction from us. (Details at right.) Oh and you get a Kano kit too which is sweet.

Proudly Pi

We love building on top of the Raspberry Pi board, and alongside the foundation and community. We're working open up the device's promise and power to everyone, and expand the ecosystem.

We've designed brand new hardware and new hacks, and fixed dozens of known issues on the Pi – they'll be open, so anyone can have at them and improve.

Who are you people?

We're a group of eight from six different countries. We've been around for a year now, making things we think are cool and shipping kits around the world.

Hey Kickstarter!

We’ve spent the last year making, playing, and remaking the kit around the world with

hundreds of young people

tech educators

musicians

teachers

gamers

and the open-source community.

The prototype works beautifully, we’ve nailed suppliers and production, and we know we can make it at $99 – so it can reach everyone.

But we need your help to make it happen

We always knew that Kano was something we wanted to take directly to Kickstarter for a first run. It's a place that blurs those lines from earlier – art, science, etc. – and thus can make really audacious dreams come true.

$100,000 will allow us to make up to 1000 more kits, keep the lights on, and work on new hardware expansions. With your help, we can continue to make "making" even more accessible and fun.

A bonus!

Kickstarter backers will be the first to get the new Kano Kit, and also to play with the new Kano OS as treasured Alpha testers.

Plus, just for here, we're offering the Kano keyboard as a separate accessory – wireless, independent mouse buttons, multitouch trackpad, awesome, orange. Just pledge more than $49 to get it.

(Smaller than a Subway sandwich.)

Everything is a prototype

We want to keep designing projects, books, software levels, hardware, and experiences that you want – then releasing and open-sourcing them as soon as they're working. It's messy but fun, and keeps us thinking.

Early book sketch (boom!)

Early case rapid prototype

Kit starts to take shape

It fits!

Origin of species

Production timeline

Pledge promise

Before Kickstarting, we wanted to ensure we could make good on our promises. So we started early – we designed, developed and released 200 prototype kits (white box), and brought them to market.

A year later, we’ve sourced hundreds of components from dozens of suppliers, completed product assembly and order fulfillment ourselves (at first from Yonatan and Alex’s apartment), and pulled off operations for our early adopters. If you join us with a pledge, we'll be able to go the last mile.

It’s been an adventure, and we’re ready for larger volumes and new expansions. Our prototypes are up, running, and ready for next summer – all we need is you.

We hope we can get you started with Kano. But after that, it's your's to create.

Follow along!

Shoulders of giants

On the shoutouts front, we're lucky to have built on top of Raspberry Pi, an amazing invention that has pushed the ball forward for computing education in innumerable wonderful ways. We've also built on top of the work of fine Pi hackers like Sam Aaron, Rich Wareham, and Alex Bradbury, and are pushing all our own code back into the community. We are also grateful for the Debian community, who have been huge assets as we try and create a new generation of open-source engineers and creators by making Linux fun. We're also grateful to Mojang for Minecraft and the Pi Edition.

For the new hardware and packaging, we worked with the geniuses at MAP, industrial designers who make mindblowing classroom chairs and watering cans. They've pioneered a process called "informed creativity" and were founded by the guys who did the London Olympic Torch. We collaborated with Jon Marshall, Scott Barwick, and Jacky Chung, mould-breaking thinkers and artists.

We started this a year ago with the thought that anyone should be able to make and change technology. We're just one group of people working in a broader movement to bring technological creativity to the masses (Codecademy, Code.org, Raspberry Pi). Hope you can be, like us, a small part.

Some things we're glad people said

"There's enormous value to platforms like Kano which add hardware, software, peripherals and documentation to the Pi to make it more appealing to users who are under-served by the standard offering. I've had a play with early versions of the Kano software environment, and I think Alex and the team are doing great work making the Pi more accessible to younger and less technical audiences."-Eben Upton, Founder, CEO, Inventor, Raspberry Pi

"The Kano Kit was really inspirational to young people in Freetown." -Kelvin Doe, inventor, aka "DJ Focus,"

“Adults think we're incapable, but we made a computer with this like, Matrix code. We’re like super children!” -Khalid, 8

"It’s great to see kids making (and changing) Pong with the Kano Kit." -Al Alcorn, inventor, Pong

“It was so fun when we used the code. Usually on Minecraft you can’t do stuff like that...” -Harry, 9

"Kano will help people around the world learn new skills and unlock their potential." -Rohan, Frmr Tech Advisor, UK PM

Risks and challenges

We're a team with a lot of experience in making things and delivering them – digital products, consumer products and technology execution, with background at places like Skype, Keter, Newsweek, Sony, Memrise, and Red Hat. There are always challenges, but our promise is that we'll rise to meet them with all our might. We'll do everything in our power to leave our backers well looked after, and their rewards on-time or early.

We've given above a conservative estimate of of delivery dates. We are committed to keeping you informed of our progress in the months following the campaign. Our promise to deliver will be challenged at all times by the known complexities of manufacturing, production scheduling, shipping "atoms" between continents, and more.

Therefore, in the event that unexpected issues arise in the delivery schedule, we will do our utmost to minimize the impact on our supporters and dedicate ourselves to providing the best, most honest, experience. Our first 200 got hands-on help, and so will you if you join us.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $19 or more
About $19

Swag –
You get the awesome judo T-SHIRT, as well as all of the above digital goodness and source-code shoutout. All shirt sizes, including kids', available. Plus, you get STICKERS!
[add $10 for delivery]

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $29 or more
About $29

Swag – You get the awesome judo T-SHIRT, as well as all of the above digital goodness and source-code shoutout. All shirt sizes, including kids', available. Plus, you get STICKERS! [INCLUDES WORLDWIDE SHIPPING]

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $99 or more
About $99

GET KANO (early bird special) – You get a KANO KIT, the first computer that you make yourself – fun, simple, and for everyone. First, build a Raspberry Pi system and a sweet speaker, then design your own case. Next, bring them to life – talk to your computer, create games and music, start coding, compete with friends, and unlock new powers. All kit backers get unique SOURCE CODE recognition, with the judo face badge. [add $20 for delivery]

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $119 or more
About $119

[INCLUDES WORLDWIDE DELIVERY] GET KANO – You get a KANO KIT, the first computer that you make yourself – fun, simple, and for everyone. First, build a Raspberry Pi system and a sweet speaker, then design your own case. Next, bring them to life – talk to your computer, create games and music, start coding, compete with friends, and unlock new powers. All kit backers get unique SOURCE CODE recognition, with the judo face badge.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $999 or more
About $999

Kano Lab – If you’ve made it this far, you may like the idea of a computer and coding kit for all. With this pledge, you’ll push the ball forward. A KANO LAB brings TEN KANO KITS to the school, hackspace, or institution of your choice, as well as a day WORKSHOP with us. You also get the KANO COMPANION, a digital curriculum pack that's perfect for educators, parents, and the curious. Finally, you'll get massive recognition, props, and love, throughout everything we do. (And a T-SHIRT.)

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $10,000
About $10,000

Pledging for a Kano Academy is something special; we won’t ever forget it, and nor will the institution, school, or company you transform. The ACADEMY will provide personalized WORKSHOPS for up to 100 people to introduce, set up, and play, plus BESPOKE TUTORIALS and companion GUIDES, designed by us for you. You’ll also become a founding institution or individual in the KANO ACADEMY: our not-for-profit initiative to get people making with computers again, all over the world. (And... you get a T-SHIRT!)